There’re people with HIV in N’Assembly – Osotimehin

A ministerial nominee from Ogun State, Prof. Babatunde Osotimehin, on Wednesday jolted members of the National Assembly, when he declared that people living with HIV/AIDS were within the complex.

Osotimehin made the disclosure while fielding questions from Senators during his screening before the Senate.

He said “Even in this hallowed ground of the National Assembly, there are people living with the virus and they may not know it. They don’t know it because they have not gone for tests.”


Osotimehin, the Director-General of the National Agency for the Control of AIDS, said three million Nigerians were living with the virus. Of this number, he said 500,000 were eligible for treatment while only about 250,000 were currently undergoing treatment.


He said Nigeria had a current prevalence of four per cent. He, however, said various measures put in place since 1999 had began to yield the desired result because awareness was now more.


Earlier, Senator George Akume, said “The issue of HIV is a very sensitive and serious one. It is a scourge but it looks like we have dwelt so much on the preventive aspect of this rather than curative.

“Prof Osotimehin, have you made any attempt to integrate even your orthodox approach to handling this scourge; Integrating the traditional approach into the overall orthodox approach in managing Aids in Nigeria?

“Is it that we are closed to getting a cure? I am talking about cure; because only very few of us can abstain.”


The NACA D-G responded that “The question about traditional approach to the management of AIDS, I think that until; we have verifiable claims we would not be able to do that. There are many herbs that have potency for various things in our system.

“Indeed when you look at the drugs that we use today, most of them were derived from herbs but there is a need to process them, there is a need to be sure that what we are giving them is appropriate.”

The nominee from Borno State , Dr. Shettima Mustafa (69) was grilled on issues ranging from his age, experience, to what he had to offer the nation.

He said his age and experience should count because he had acquired the requisite knowledge and experience to move the country forward.

Mustafa said his experience from the past added to what he saw today, put him in a better position to project into the future.